Tuesday, 24 July 2012

Preliminary task

This is a short 40 seconds clip of the music video we created for the preliminary task. The task helped us learn more skills of the camera as it had been a while since we last used it. We wanted to use the song 'Keep you head up' by Ben Howard because it matches our indie pop genre which we are focusing on throughout the project, we kept with the theme of nature because in the videos we had analysed it was a common theme throughout.The song is quite upbeat compared to the one we are thinking about using for the final piece, the song was perfect for what we wanted to achieve, we wanted to make the video look like a home video and have it quite chilled out because of the time we had to do it in we didn't think they was a lot of time to decide on a narrative for the video. We did have some problems but only due to the weather, the day we were going to film the weather was heavy rain and wouldn't of been good to film in as we wanted a festival look with sunshine. Luckily the day after we decided to film the weather was good and it gave us the look we wanted to achieve when filming. 


We wanted the video to look like a home video and we did this by just randomly filming when moving to the different parts of the location we were filming at (0:11) which gives a natural look to the film as it catches everyone off guard. We wanted to create a summery look to the video so we changed the colours, the colours used were purple,green and blues which gives it a unique look to the video. We were just testing the colours out because we had an idea for our final piece so doing this gives us an idea of what it looks like. Maybe, for this piece it would of looked better in a sepia look to give it a more summery feel to the video. We used several shots when shooting such as, pans and long shots to show the scenery of the location. The different shots of us all having fun show what we wanted to show in our video and gives a upbeat feel to the video. My favourite shot is of me and Catherine running through the corn field (0:22 - 0:25) it shows exactly what we wanted to show in the task. We wanted one shot of the poppy to have a different colour background but the poppy to stay the same colour, we used MATTE on the clip, we had to cut round the flower by dragging the points to make sure the poppy stayed the same colour. Because of the video clip of the poppy moving the matte moved so the colour would go over the poppy and it didn't look very good, we didn't have enough time to get it perfect because it did have to be on the blog. We know how to do it now for the future and will make it look good if we include it on our final piece. 


We had problems when editing the video because the computer kept freezing and even though we had saved the project we kept loosing the recent work we had done. This was a big problem because of the time we had to edit the video, this meant having to do a shorter video with less clips. We are all happy with the final out look of the music video, it has gave us an idea of what we want for the final piece. 

Tuesday, 17 July 2012

Filming 11th July

We filmed today and thankfully the weather was sunny which is what we wanted as we wanted to show summer festival look to our video as this is what most of the videos we have looked at show. We all are happy with the final results of our filming and when we have looked through the shots we think we will be able to make the video look quite professional. This task helped us a lot because it has give us an idea of what we want to show in our final piece and what kind of stuff we want to include.

Planning

Preliminary task

For our preliminary task we are using the song 'Keep your head up' by ben howard as we want the video to be quite chilled out and relaxed. We want to film outside to give it a natural look because all of the Indie Pop music videos we have looked at have this theme. We want it to also have a festival look to it so we are going to be wearing festival like clothing to give it quite a unique look to it.
  • Keep your head up ben howard - chilled out and relaxed
  • Outside/natural
  • researched videos are outside, keeps the theme
  • Quite fun and playful which fits with the song
  • running around in a wheat field
  • festival like clothing
  • slow motion effects
  • long shots, close-ups, dolly shots to follow objects
  • Hullahoops, hop scotch, footballs

10th July

We were planning on filming today outside but unfortunatly because of the bad weather we had to plan to film for tomorrow instead. We didnt want to risk filming outside because it would ruin the look we wanted to show in our video and didnt want the rain to ruin the look. We just hope it's sunny tomorrow to be able to shoot.

Tuesday, 3 July 2012

Nature in video's

When analysing the different music video the group noticed that a lot of the videos for the genre we are looking at use a lot of nature imagery in the videos such as close-ups of flowers, water, grass and a lot of them seen to have an adventure feel to them. A lot of Ben Howards videos show nature and Mumford and sons. We like the look of it on their videos and we are thinking of including a lot for when we film our music video, we have ideas for out primliary task which we want to test out so we know what it would look like for when we actually do the final piece.


Monday, 2 July 2012

Lana Del Rey - Born To Die

The song has quite deep and meaningful lyrics and the video shows a relationship between the singer Lana and a man. She is very vintage with the way she dresses and her theme of vintage is shown throughout the video for "Born To Die". The song shows a story of them and how at the end she was "Born to die". The video begins with the two cuddling in front of the American Flag which gives a background of the singer being american it gives an idea that she has a lot of pride for her country and wants to show that in her video. We see the exact shot at the end of the video once she has died which could be her idea of heaven.  


The camera uses a tracking shot following the roof of a church this gives an idea of the narrative story she is trying to show with her song "Born to Die" as churches you have funerals in, this matches the quite deep lyrics. The camera slowly moves towards Lana sitting on a throne type chair which is quite a powerful image of the church background behind her and the two tigers beside her. The tigers gives her a lot of power as they are very powerful creatures. She is wearing a white dress which symbolizes innocents but can also symbolize heaven which links to her lyrics and the theme of death throughout them. 

Throughout the video it cuts to different scenes of her and the man this is the narrative part of the video and shows the troubled relationship she is going through. The lyrics match the different scenes shown "Lets go get high" shows the two of them smoking in the car, the use of the narrative story shows the meaning of the song and how they are willing to do anything for love and to have a good time before it turns bad. The scenes change with the two being very passionate together to then change to him being quite forceful that she doesn't enjoy being around him anymore. The lighting is quite dark and matches the dark and deep lyrics the song is showing, it contrasts with the shots of Lana in the church as the light is bright, both of the lights show a different story. 

At 1.18 the lyric is "Sometimes love's not enough when the road gets tough"  the camera uses a close-up of Lana's face which shows her emotion when she sings the line.  Her face shows a genuine expression like she has gone through it and she isn't acting. The audience can feel a real sense of emotions coming from Lana and what the lyrics are trying to show. 


The lighting at 2.44 is a red light which gives a sign of death but also love which fits to the song and the story it is trying to tell. When the narrative story shows Lana has died in the video in a car crash the camera jumps to lana in another white dress walking down the church to some big doors. When she opens them she walks into a white light, this could be her walking into heaven it then skips to the first scene of her infront of the American Flag again which ends the video.



This medium close-up shows the fire behind the couple which gives the audience an idea that she died in a car crash. The man holding Lana is really effective as the camera zooms out of his face to show him holding her and the use of cloe-up of his face shows his expression and how he is feeling towards what has just happened. The blood on her can link to the lighting in the previous shot at 2.44 which can show what was about to happen to her and how she was about to die.






Sunday, 1 July 2012

Eliza Doolittle - Rollarblades

The video starts with the camera following a bicycle which contrasts with the song title 'Rollarblades' this makes the video interesting as she is showing something different to what the song may be trying to show. 



Throughout the video the camera follows Eliza and uses medium close ups of her face and on the bike, it shows she is the main focus of the video. Now and again we see two shots of Eliza and the man she is with, giving a sense of romance as the song lyrics show. The man shows up with Blue balloons which is quite unusual as romance is usually represented with the colour Red and blue usually symbolizes sadness and upset. The blue is quite an aqua blue which is quite relaxing and calm which matches the tone and mood of the song and the speed the video is going at. 
The video shows Eliza on a sofa which makes the video seem quite random as it is in the middle of the street, this gives the video quite unique look. It makes the audience think why she has used this in her video and makes you want to listen to the lyrics to see if it has anything to do with the song. The sofa is red which can represent the romance between the two in the video as it shows them both on the sofa. 
Throughout the video we see quick shots of a man following Eliza and they seem to be having fun together, but it doesn't really match the song lyrics as she is showing she is moving on from him "Rolling on, moving on". At 2.53 we see him buying her an ice cream but she rides past him on her bike and the next shot is of her in a different place, this shot matches the song and gives a story that she is trying to get over someone. The close-up of the man shows his emotion  and shows how he is feeling.



The video seems to be quite chilled out and relaxed compared to other artists videos like Lady Gaga's and Beyonce. Eliza's video fits perfectly with the indie pop genre and matches the videos a lot of Indie pop artist produce. Like Ben Howards video for "Old Pine" it shows the artist enjoying themselves and a lot of the video matches the song lyrics. They show quite a natural look in the videos as she is riding a bike and wearing quite casual clothes, like she is trying to show she is quite normal compared to big stars. Eliza can be compared to singers like Beyonce and Lady Gaga who have quite an edgy look to them and they show this in their videos, whereas, Eliza has quite a unique look and is very cute compared to big artists like Gaga and Beyonce and she shows this in her videos where she is dressed in trainers and shorts.